October
1999One tiny monarch that was tagged and recaptured on the
Atlantic Coast reveals some clues:

The monarch
was tagged at 1 p.m. on October 6, 1999, in Cape May, New Jersey.

A man
recaptured the monach on October 7, 1999, at 4:56 p.m. on Fisherman
Island, Virginia.

This butterfly's
flight times let us calculate how many miles a monarch can migrate in
a single day.

Try
This! A Challenge For Older Students

1.
How far?
How many miles did the monarch travel? Find
the two places on a map and measure the distance between them:

Cape
May is at the southernmost tip New Jersey.

Fisherman
Island is at the southernmost tip of the Delmarva Peninsula,
on the north end of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

2.
How fast?How quickly
(in miles per hour) might the tagged monarch traveled? Here are some helpful
facts:

Monarchs
do not fly in the dark. Sunset was about 6:30 pm on October 6th and
sunrise was about 7:00 am on October 7th.

October
temperatures can be cool and monarchs can't fly until they're warm enough.
They typicially go into their roosts an hour or two before sunset.They
may stay in their roost an hour or two after sunrise in the morning.

For
Perspective: If a butterfly left your hometown today and headed
for Mexico, what town might it reach by tomorrow? Use the distance the
tagged butterfly traveled. Find a town the same distance between your
hometown and Mexico.